╰⊰✿ I was supposed to be writing more often. I promised myself a minimum of how often I hoped to post…having not met that minimum I am now here because I also have a new motto I’m trying to live by. A motto I’d like to share with you as well…

“Each moment is a perfectly contained capsule of life. Each moment is the only one we can life in, the only one we have control over. The past moments are gone. The future moments are not here yet. What we have is only this very moment. Meaning…we can choose each new moment to change that which we don’t like, enjoy that which we do, and know that each one of these moments are precious pearls strung together to make a life. Our life.”

And right this very moment I get to share that with you, as you read this…as I write this. We are, for a brief few minutes connected in time. It’s really a rather staggering and mind-blowing concept to contemplate. All that to say that it’s okay I’ve not written, because I have chosen right now to write. I have many thoughts I wish to share with you about the epic nature of our modern ability to connect with others around the world. I’ve experienced it here with you in blog format, on my Facebook Page as mentioned before, and also on Twitter–which is new to me. Well, not new…per se…I’ve had a Twitter account for some time, but in taking time each day to connect…just to say good morning or ‘hey look at my crazy dog’, share a meaningful quote, or whatever quick little thing(s) throughout the day one wishes to share, Twitter is the format for it.

I know some don’t care for it and others use it for entirely different purposes. I’m just along for the ride and happily call it ‘research’. I adore the connections I’ve made so far and look forward to many more. I’ve shared the love of the reading, of words, of coffee, of writing. I have connected with those who are practicing the craft of writing, those who are writing books, those who have books published, those who would rather just read books and more. Some who just love the idea of an instant connection ‘in a moment’ with someone.

All this goes with my rapidly growing voracious appetite for words. How people use them. How they are interpreted. How social media, books, everything written is assimilated, sought after, shared. I find it absolutely fascinating and am just so honored to be part of it. Honored that some would be interested in my words…in what I have to say…to share. Beyond honored that they would take the time to tell me exactly how my words, my poems, have affected them.

So, in a moment we can change our lives, or life can change it for us. Both for good and bad. In most cases, we have the choice to pilot our moments in the directions of our dreams…if we only would choose to.

Until next time… ✿⊱╮

΅〜 ೋ ♥ ೋ 〜΅

΅〜 ೋ Christina〜 ೋ 〜΅

~

P.S. As you may have noticed I am currently…tweaking the layout, it’s still not quite what I’ve envisioned. However, I do very much appreciate you’re awesomeness while I continue to get it sorted. And hey…have an amazingly incredible day/night! ♥ xx~

╰⊰✿ I had a process. A writing process. The words I would take in from everything around me…books, songs, the interwebs, a conversation…they would join and rejoin and then form into something I crafted, shaped, molded into a poem….my version of a poem. I never really did think of my poems as traditional. More prose-like. More unique, or so I tried. Yet…they always felt lacking to me in some way. Although, you guys…you beautiful souls would comment and say the most unfathomably wondrous things to me. I would breathe a sigh of relief as though I had been holding my breath until reading your feedback. It was absolutely glorious. Addictive.

During my hiatus I’ve been reading, as mentioned in the last post, but I’ve also been watching, learning…becoming thirstier for even more knowledge…other writers. Writers I admire. Some are famous in the traditional ‘household name’ sort of way, and some maybe you’ve never heard of. Maybe you have. I’ll gladly share if you ask, but this is about me learning what they do. How they do it. How they consistently write their books. How they stay so very focused. How they manage to juggle the online distractions of Facebook Pages, Twitter, Google+, Instagram. How they manage to create their art and yet stay in touch, grow their connections, day in and day out. I’ve learned so much, just enough to make me dare to think I might be able to emulate them, in their commitment…their diligence to their passion to create and stay connected.

I’ve experimented. I’ve been making amazing friends via my Facebook Page which is over there to your right (bottom if you’re on your phone) and also on Twitter. Instagram is a new excursion for me and one I’m not fully versed in yet, but I am trying. I’m putting it all out there. My kids, my crazy chaotic life. Mostly though, I’m trying to understand how to connect and create. I’ve not written anything longer than a Facebook Post or Tweet in the months I’ve been away, well…maybe an email counts as writing. If so, then I suppose I have written.

I have also, now that I’m thinking about it, written a few ‘stream of conscious’ book reviews on Goodreads. I call them such because they were just like this post. Me just typing my thoughts as they come to mind…that’s it. I don’t know if they’re any good, that wasn’t my intention when writing them. They were just my thoughts and feelings on them when I finished reading. I’ve not reread them, knowing me…I’d attempt to rewrite them. I’m learning it’s okay to just write and then let it go. Exactly my hopes for this post.

A few of the aforementioned books have touched me so very deeply I cannot, even in this overly long post, express their impact on my entire way of thinking…of myself, of my life, of my overwhelming desire to write, of my connections with each of you. I feel as though the years of conditioning that life has put me through has fallen away, so to speak, and left me free to recreate…reconstruct myself, yet again. An absolute metamorphosis.

I would very much like to continue to be so free thinking with what I share with you. I would like to share what I’m learning, what I desire to learn, what I’m reading, what I long to read, what I’m thinking, and so very much more. I imagine it will be different for you as well as for me and may take some getting used to. However, through this I very much hope and wish you gain a better insight into my world….and I in yours….

Like this:

I’m so excited to be posting my 100th blog post hot on the heels of my 1 year Blogiversary post, then getting to share about Our British Invasion as well! Since the main topic of the aforementioned visit was books and the awesome adventure shared to obtain them, I thought the following piece was absolutely incredible and wished to share it with all of you for my first video reading….Vlog, if you will.

I present to you “You Should Date A Girl Who Reads” written by Rosemarie Urquico ~ I am so hopeful you will enjoy my reading of her magical words…

Thank you!

Christina ~

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“You should date a girl who reads. Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

~

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She…’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

~

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted.

~

Ask her if she likes the book.
Buy her another cup of coffee.

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Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

~
It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

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She has to give it a shot somehow.

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Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

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Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

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Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

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If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

~

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

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You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

~

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Well…I shouldn’t call inviting one of our most special friends here an invasion. But given our countries history this is my attempt at a snappy title.

We were so fortunate as to have the infamous and brilliant blogger StetotheJ(aka Ste J) in our home for a few weeks. All here…including the animals were most happy to share what we could of an American family with our visitor from across the pond…so to speak.

I did my best to make him a caffeine-a-holic, like myself…but we found it only made him sleepy. Tis alright though for we did make good friends with Tyler from Starbucks….whom you will have already heard of if you’ve read Ste J’s posts about his trip to America from his point of view.

I thought it apropos to share our point of view as well. Since we are all very verbal and chatty…he fit right in and I had to wait in line to speak with him as all here (mostly the children and animals) vied for his attentions. Jack and Emma had him racing Mario Kart style. Jack even made a few videos of Hotwheel’s Trick Track’s with some additions of Dominoes and such with Ste J as his helper.

By far the bestest and my most favorite part was the many trips to our various book stores about this small town I often refer to as “Podunkville” because it is small and I am a big-city girl having grown up in Portland, OR and traveled to most of the major big cities in America.

Treasure Trove of Books!

Honestly…it was bliss pure and simple. Good coffee…the bestest company and reading each and every spine in each store. We laughed in Time’s face as we paid it no mind on our quest for books. We quickly chose our favorite book stores and then re-visited. While Ste J may say that we were gracious hostess’s….in fact he was the greatest guest ever….having seen my new yet empty bookshelf he went on a mission to choose the very finest in literary selections to fill it with. In the end…there were 42 gifts….a virtual treasure trove of who’s who in modern and classical literature.

The first of the aforementioned gifts was Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s “Love in The Time of Cholera” and I have to admit his style is simply exquisite and inexplicably profound…no wonder he won a Nobel Prize for literature! Not even half way through and I am ready to replace my all time favorite book (Pride & Prejudice) with this one. Reading this is more of a literary delight than anything I’ve previously experienced.

Our trips to the local restaurants…walks by the river…and explorations of book stores…

Queen of The West on the Columbia River

not to mention some awesomazing Doctor Who watching made this visit more than memorable!

To Ste J I say…leave your Kingdom dearest sir and come back to us where we will all write and share our stories and find even more magnificent books to peruse….